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El Rancho High School´s football stadium has been renamed after the school´s most successful football coach — Ernie Johnson. He led the Dons to a National Championship in 1966. He went on to coach at Long Beach State. Johnson coached at El Rancho during the 1950s
and Ô60s and compiled a record of 108-31-5. (HAND-IN ART courtesy El Rancho Unified School District rcd Sept. 2011.)

Ernie Johnson, El Rancho High School and the city of Pico Rivera could not have been a better match in the 1950s and 60s.

Johnson was from a working-class background and was a World War II and Korean War veteran. His students and players at El Rancho — he became a teacher when the school opened in 1954 and became head football coach in 1956 — were the children of working-class parents, many of whom were veterans themselves. Johnson and the parents of his players shared history, values and beliefs and the parents trusted the lessons they taught at home would be continued on Johnson’s practice field.

“He said many times it was a perfect place and a perfect time,” his widow, Vicki, remembered. “It was a perfect storm.”

Johnson passed away peacefully Sept. 15 at the age of 87. Private services already havev been held, but El Rancho will honor him with a pair of upcoming ceremonies. On Nov. 1, Johnson will be remembered at halftime of the Dons’ football game. On Nov. 3, a memorial will be held in El Rancho’s gym from 1-3 p.m., with several of his former players scheduled to speak.

Johnson taught and coached for nearly 40 years and left a lasting impact on just about everyone he encountered. Even 50 years later, his former players and assistant coaches get together regularly to share laughs and swap stories about the man they still refer to as “coach.”

“He really knew how to draw you in,” said David Verdugo, a senior on Johnson’s 1968 team. “His connectivity with the youth of Pico Rivera was amazing.”

Longtime Cerritos College head coach Frank Mazzotta grew up in the shadow of El Rancho High, and still remembers the thrill he got from being an El Rancho water boy in junior high. He called Johnson “the pied piper” because of the way people seemed to flock to him.

“He affected so many lives,” said Mazzotta, a 1962 El Rancho graduate and a member of Johnson’s first CIF championship team in 1960. “I don’t know where I’d be right now (if not for Johnson). I don’t know which direction I would have gone.”

Johnson did remarkable things with the youths of Pico Rivera during his 12 years as El Rancho coach. Between 1956 and 1968, Johnson’s teams went 108-31-5 and played in five CIF finals. The Dons won three of those games and the 1966 team went 13-0 en route to CIF, state and mythical national titles.

His coaching style was gruff and direct, no doubt the residue of his military experience. And because most of his players were the children of veterans, they got little sympathy at home if they complained about football practice.

“It was a perfect time for a guy like him,” Verdugo recalled. “All of our dads were vets.”

He could wilt a mischievous player with just a stare, but he also was a great motivator and builder of confidence.

“Even after he kicked your (butt), he had a way of building you back up,” Verdugo said.

Former players Dennis Deiro and Reggie Fielder each remembered Johnson as funny and a great story teller. Deiro, a reserve offensive and defensive lineman, said he felt just as cared for by Johnson as any of the star players.

“I was the furthest thing from a star,” Deiro said, “But he didn’t look at me any differently.”

Johnson also knew how to harness street toughness and helped turn more than one potential thug into a football player and productive citizen. His esteem in the community was such that, according to a story told by several former players, gang members returned the hubcaps stolen from his new car after they learned they were his, plus several other sets as well.

“There are a lot of guys who would be in jail if not for Ernie Johnson,” Mazzotta said. “He wanted to take that (tough) element off the streets and put it on the football field.”

Johnson left El Rancho after 1968 and was an assistant at Long Beach State for a season before turning around Newport Harbor’s moribund program in 1970. In 1971, Johnson became head coach at Cerritos College, a job he held until 1977. He was succeeded by Mazzotta, who’s held the post ever since.

Mazzotta still uses many of the same coaching strategies he learned from Johnson and finds himself often repeating the things he heard on the El Rancho practice field as a youngster. On his office wall, Mazzotta keeps photos of Johnson and himself taken during games pinned together, each with the same vexed expression on his face.